Perfect You (11 page)

Granted, all we had in common was that our friends didn't like us anymore, and after spending the better part of the fall semester hanging out with her and the other Jennifers, I knew that was all we'd ever have in common, but still. It was something.

"I almost bought another pair of shoes, actually," she said. "There were these amazing purple knee-high boots I really wanted, but Jennifer said these were cuter."

Never mind.

I slowed down then, so I wouldn't have to try and make conversation with her anymore, and ended up walking right by Will and Sarah, who were still talking. I only looked at them for a second, I swear, but naturally that was the one second Will chose to not be looking at her and saw me.

"Hey Kate," he said. "Hold up for a second."

He smiled at Sarah and then walked toward me. Sarah dismissed me by not even looking at me and told him, "I'm going to come visit you at work soon," brushing one hand slowly down his back before she swayed away.

"Oh, the lingering back touch," I said. "Must be serious." I could have bitten off my tongue as soon as I said it. For someone who wasn't jealous, I sure sounded like it.

And since I wanted to rip off her hand and jump up and down on it, I was kind of feeling it too. Not a good sign.

"Not that serious," he said, grinning at me. "Like she said, she hasn't even come to see me at work. Now, if someone did that, and then let me buy them a slice of pizza or something, it might be serious."

I wasn't going to read into that. I wasn't. I was going to say something clever. Or at least sort of clever.

"Uh," I said, sounding like an idiot instead, and that's when Anna walked by, holding Sam's hand, and smiled.

Really smiled. At me.

It was like she knew what was going on with Will and saved me from myself. It was like she was my friend again. I mean, I knew that wasn't what her smile was about, I did. But if she hadn't smiled, I probably would have told Will something stupid like, "I like pizza,"

or worse, "I'll come see you at work."

Luckily, I didn't say anything like that. I was so startled by what had happened (Anna smiling! At me!) that all I could say to Will was, "I . . . bye," which wasn't clever, but also wasn't begging for a date.

Why had she smiled at me? I couldn't figure it out. Not in last period, not on the way to work, and not when I was at work.

"Hello," Dad said, interrupting my thoughts and waving one hand in front of my face.

"Earth to Kate." He made his terrible so-called spaceship noises. "Come in, Kate."

"Funny, Dad. I was just thinking."

"Is everything all right?"

"Yes," I said, dragging the word out. Talking to Dad had punctured my super secret fantasy thoughts, which were that this year was a dream and I'd wake up tomorrow and find out everything had gone back to normal. No more vitamins, no more working in the mall, no more Grandma hogging up the bathroom and making everyone crazy, and Anna would be my best friend again.

"Good. I'm going to get some coffee, okay?"

I nodded, staring down into our display case. If everything did go back to normal, the only thing I'd miss would be Will.

That was a scary thought for a lot of reasons, and it made me think about what he'd said earlier, which, naturally, gave me more to worry about. What had he meant with all that stuff about seeing him and pizza? Did it really mean something? Or was he just talking?

Why couldn't guys come with a decoder?

"Kate?"

I looked up. It was Anna. Here. Now.

I made myself blink. She was still there.

"Hi," she said. "Hey." I didn't know what else to say.

"How's work going?" She was biting her lip the way she did when she was nervous.

"Okay." Was I making her nervous? I couldn't be.

She nodded but didn't say anything, just looked around like she was searching for something. Probably an exit.

"You can go," I said, and was proud of how normal I sounded. My voice wasn't shaking much at all.

She looked at me. "I know."

I refused to look away first, even though I really wanted to. "Why are you here?"

"I just ... I saw you over here."

"And?"

"God, Kate," she said. "What do you think? I wanted to talk to you."

"Me? Why would you want to do that when you could be hanging out with Diane or laughing at me because my dad sells infomercial vitamins?"

She sighed. "I suck for that. It's just that I . . . look, Diane was really upset. Her mom was pretty freaked out by your dad's party thing."

"Right," I said, my voice tight, and shoved my hands into my pockets because they'd started to shake. "God forbid Diane, who used to call you Fat Ass, should be upset."

"Nice," she said, looking off the to the side again and shaking her head. "Real nice, Kate.

Bring up--"

"What, the truth?"

She looked at me. "You . . . you're so you, Kate," she said, and then she smiled. "I saw you talking to Will before last period today. Does he still drive you crazy?"

She had no idea. "Pretty much."

Her smile grew wider. "I really do miss you, you know."

She'd said it before, but it still felt so good to hear. The thing was, why did she miss me now? And what about before? "Is that why you stopped talking to me?"

"I ... I had to."

"You had to?"

"Things changed for me, Kate, and I . . I like who I am now. Life was never as easy for me as it is for you."

"Easy for me? Oh yeah, Anna. Having my best friend act like I don't exist? Piece of cake!

Getting stuck working at the mall with my dad selling crap vitamins? Joy! Yeah, I can see why you would want my easy life."

"I don't mean--it's just that you've always known who you are," she said. "You never . . .

well, you didn't spend years in love with a guy who never noticed you were alive. You didn't have birthday parties that didn't work out like you wanted them to. You didn't . . .

things were different for me than they were for you."

"But you were the one who never cared what people said, who--"

"Always listened anyway," she said. "I can still hear what people used to say about me.

To me. And I just . . I got tired of it. I didn't want to be me anymore."

"Well, you aren't." "But I am," she said. "That's just it. I'm still me. You see it, don't you? See me?"

And looking at her, made over into someone blond and thin and beautiful--I did see it.

I saw Anna, my friend.

We made plans to meet later, down by the ATM.

"I have to go home for a while first," Anna said. "I don't want to, but Mom's job hunting, and you know how she is."

When I nodded, she hugged me. "See, that's why I miss you. You do know exactly what my mom is like. I'll see you at nine, okay? And I won't be late, I promise."

"Oh, come on," I said, grinning at her. "There's no way you've changed that much."

She laughed and hugged me again before she walked away.

I went on my dinner break so happy that even hearing Dad obsess about yet another new promotion plan, this one involving me and shrimp, couldn't get me down.

Then I thought of something. What if she didn't show up?

I put the bag containing my sandwich, a small box of raisins, and a container of warm orange juice on a table in the food court and sat down, slowly taking everything out.

She'd show up. I was almost sure of it. After all, she'd said that she missed me. She'd even said it more than once.

But she'd said that back before school started too.

"Hey, where's your juice box?"

I looked up and saw Will standing next to the table, a slice of pizza on a paper plate resting in one hand, a soda in another. Today his name tag said shoe guy. I wanted to kiss him so bad I couldn't think straight for a moment.

"What? Oh, right. No juice box today," I said, and put the carton down, poking at the plastic wrap covering my sandwich with one finger. It oozed jelly at me.

"Can I sit down?"

I knocked my juice over. Thankfully, I hadn't opened it yet. "What? Why?"

"Because when I eat standing up, people look at me strangely."

I laughed. "That's not why they look."

"Nice," he said, grinning, and sat down.

I didn't know what to do, so I picked up my juice and opened it. Then I realized I didn't have a straw. I know you're supposed to be able to drink from the carton, but there was no way I was going to try that. I'd have been better off just pouring the juice directly onto my shirt.

I glanced at Will. He was looking at me, and I didn't know why I didn't know why he was sitting with me. After we'd started meeting at night, I'd sometimes seen him on a break when I was taking mine, but I'd always left before he could see me, even if it meant killing the rest of my break sitting by our storage area.

"How's work?" he said.

This was exactly why I'd always left. I didn't want him to talk to me like this, like he had to.

"Fine," I said. "You?" What was I doing? I sounded like a freak. A boring freak.

"Well, let's put it this way. I just spent an hour pulling tissue paper out of sneakers so some guy could try on fifteen pairs before deciding he didn't really want new shoes after all."

"I can top that. I just found out that tomorrow I'll be handing out shrimp."

He grinned at me, and I tried not to stare at his dimples. "I'll be up close and personal with other people's feet for hours. I win."

"Have you seen how people act around free food?"

"Strangely enough, I have," he said. "It really isn't pretty, so maybe I don't win after all.

We can talk about it later, if you want. I'm supposed to hit the trash and break down boxes at nine."

"I'm meeting someone then," I said, and he didn't say a word. He didn't do anything. He just sat there, his smile fading and his slice of pizza suspended halfway between his plate and his mouth.

"Anna," I added stupidly, like he would somehow care.

"Oh," he said, and put the piece of pizza down only to pick it up again, like he'd forgotten what to do with it.

Then we just sat there for a while. I wanted to leave, but everything was so weird I was afraid to, and so he ate his pizza and I stared at the table, ignoring my sandwich and picking at my raisins, hoping I wasn't chewing too loudly. Or getting bits of them stuck to my teeth. How could sitting with him be so much harder than making out with him?

"So, what about this weekend?" he said, and I looked at him, startled.

"Weekend?"

"You know, tomorrow--well, tomorrow night, Saturday, and then Sunday? Traditionally known as the weekend. Are you doing . . are you working?"

"Probably." I felt . . . well, I felt like crap. For a second I'd actually thought he was going to say something else. Ask me out. I was so stupid.

I stood up, grabbing my stuff and squeezing my empty raisin box into a ball. "I've gotta go back to work."

He stood up too. His face was red. "Me too."

We both stopped at the same trash can, sort of walking together but not really, and after we'd tossed our trash we just sort of stood there. It was horrible, but I couldn't bring myself to leave.

"I don't have to go back right away," he finally said, glancing at me.

"Same here," I said. I felt like I should have been upset with him for what he hadn't said before, but the truth was I knew him asking me out wasn't going to happen, that it was just a stupid dream.

Plus I really wanted to kiss him.

For some reason, he decided he had to have another slice of pizza and then didn't eat any of it. I ate it as we walked back to Dad's storage space instead, sucking cheese off my fingers and making a face at him when I caught him looking at me with a very intense expression, almost like how he looked right before we kissed.

"It's just cheese," I said.

He shook his head, shoving his hands into his pockets and glancing at Dad's ever-growing vitamin stash.

"Kate, look, about this weekend," he said, and I kissed him before he could say anything else. So I could pretend he'd done more than ask me if I was working.

So I could pretend he'd asked me out.

I spent the rest of the night in a weird mood. I was really happy and really not happy at the same time. I couldn't wait to see Anna, but I was still afraid she wouldn't show up, or that she'd show up with Diane and laugh at me.

And then there was the Will thing. Until tonight, I hadn't ever thought about going out with him. Making out with him, on the other hand . . . well, that had been the subject of a whole lot of fantasies, but that was it. I hadn't ever thought about more because I knew Will. He was always hooking up with someone. Plus I'd seen Sarah with him, and who'd pick kissing me over kissing her?

But he'd bought me pizza. Despite what he'd said, I knew he'd gotten that extra piece for me just so I'd have something to eat other than the raisins I'd picked through. And that was so unexpected, and so sweet, that I couldn't help but . . . well, like him. A lot.

Plus he was a really good kisser.

At a quarter till nine, I couldn't stand it anymore and told Dad I was going to meet Anna.

"Oh, sure," he said distractedly. "Hey, do you think a new display would help? Mall management said no to my shrimp idea, but I was thinking of setting up shells, and maybe some sand. A beach-type thing, you know?"

"Sounds great," I said, my voice flat, and grabbed my stuff. I didn't know why I told him anything. All he cared about was stupid Perfect You.

"Kate--"

"What?"

"Have a nice time," he said. "I'm glad you and Anna are talking again. I know you must have missed her."

I guess Dad wasn't always completely clueless.

Anna wasn't by the ATM, but then I was early and she was always late for everything.

When I used to meet her at the mall to go shopping, back when being at the mall was something I liked instead of my job, I always told her to meet me twenty minutes before I actually got there so she'd show up when I did.

I sat down on a bench and waited. Then I waited some more. When it had been what felt like two hours, I asked someone walking by what time it was. It was only 9:01, and I told myself to relax, that Anna would show.